Grease a 10 inch bundt tinBeat butter, sugar and zest until fluffyAdd eggs one at a timeSift together flour, bicarb, baking powder In a jug mix the sour cream and marmalade togetherFold half the flour mixture into the butter mixture, then half of the marmalade mixture, continue to add until all gently combinedBake at 160 fan oven for 45-50 minutes

For the glaze heat the ingredients until melted and thickened sightly, remove the rosemary and brush onto the warm cakeFor the icing mix ingredients together to get a thick icing and pour onto cake once completely cool.

Our next event is November 29th for CHRISTMAS CAKE CLUB! Tickets available soon.

Our September event kicked off the Winter season for Cake Eaters Anonymous (aka. Cake Club Nottingham) and we had some amazing bakes this month! If you'd like to come along to an event you can find all the info at http://www.cakeeaters.co.uk/ or search for us on Facebook.

At our events only one person can be crowned Star Baker!! So with the votes for the Gem 106 Cake of the Month really only pointing to one winner we are pleased to announce that Fran's Sticky Apple and Gingerbread Loaf wow'ed our attendees this month!

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan160°C/gas 4. Grease and line a 2 litre loaf tin. I melted the butter, sugar and syrup in a small saucepan. Once melted, stir through the milk and set aside to cool.

2. As the sugar and syrup mixture was cooling, I sift the flour with the dry spices and baking powder into a bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the cooled sugar mixture. With a wooden spoon, slowly mix the flour mixture using a circular motion. Fold through the beaten eggs, chopped pack of maple pecans, stem ginger and apples.

3.Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes away clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then remove to a wire rack.

4. When cooled, I sifted 75g of icing sugar and the added warm water to the sugar until I was happy with the consistency. I then filled the icing sugar into a piping bag and created a simple zig-zag pattern on the top of the loaf cake.

5. Put the loaf back in the fridge to set the icing sugar and bring out of the fridge when you are ready to serve with a cuppa of tea!

Finding a good UK-based holiday can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. You know what you’re looking for (a beach, somewhere nice to sleep and child friendly facilities) but sometimes it can be daunting searching all of the holiday sites for a good bargain. Gone are the days when you could just browse teletext for a good deal - now you have to trawl through endless price comparison websites and hope the site will be nice when you get there.

As it happened I had been told about Bluestone by a nameless member of Center Parcs security during a chat about the pricing of their treehouse lodges. He told me that their Operations Manager had upped sticks to go and work for Bluestone, who were fast becoming their no.1 competitor. My interest was peaked and we decided to check it out.

Bluestone is a smallish holiday village based in Narbeth, Pembrokeshire. Easily accessible by road and close to the seaside. Bluestone is a fairly new entry to the British holiday market and it’s original site opened in 2008. The company employs over 500 people across the site and has 268 timber lodges. At the time of our stay they were also speedily building a whole new area of more lodges, including some semi-detached ones for larger families.

COMMUNICATION

Bluestone added me to their mailing list after the booking was completed but I haven’t found their marketing to be overly intrusive. As the date approached I received a couple of reminder emails about booking activities, but nothing too over-the-top. The emails were also well put together and all of the links worked - which was a bonus! I did check out booking activities beforehand but as we hadn’t been to the site I wanted to see them in person before laying down the cash. We also hadn’t really planned what we were doing on and off site for the week so held out.

CHECK-IN AND DEPARTURE

When we arrived at exactly 4:30pm we were greeted cheerily by Emma and there was hardly any queue to get in. She was very thorough in explaining all of the bits and pieces in the manual and helped us to find our lodge for the week on the map. We then entered the one-way system and got a bit lost, but soon found where we were staying. It was apparent during our little tour around the one-way system that Bluestone is quite hilly and I wondered about how we would manage to walk around - particularly my dad (who is old and basically past it).

ACCOMMODATION

After locating the our lodge we had a bit of fun with the electronic RFID key cards - OOOH FANCY!!!! The door swung open and we were greeted with an absolutely stunning lodge. Bluestone have got their accommodation absolutely nailed - it is perfect in every way. We had a Skomer lodge which will very comfortably sleep 6 people, plus travel cots. There is one travel cot included in the lodge costs but more are available for hire. Away for the week in our party were four adults, one teenager and a bed-sharing toddler. We called dibs on the only double bed room, teenager had the other upstairs and my parents took the downstairs. Both bedrooms upstairs had enormous en-suites attached to them, whilst the bedroom downstairs benefitted from a wet-room/bathroom directly next door.

The lodge itself was set to a comfortable 21 degrees and we kept the heating at that level all week.

What was immediately noticeable was how child-friendly the lodge was. There are stair gates fitted to the top and bottom of the stairs (thank goodness!!!!), safety catches in the kitchen and blind cord guards on all the windows. This immediately sends it to the top of our list above Forest Holidays having endured a week long stay in a Forest Holidays lodge which didn’t have any safety features at all and a very big staircase.

The kitchen had a table with six chairs plus a highchair included as standard. It was also very large and was stocked with everything you could possibly need - including plenty of crockery and a dishwasher. It also had a separate freezer - very important when feeding a family of 6 for a week!

All of the bedrooms were very tastefully and contemporarily decorated, with lots of nice modern features. The beds were exceptionally comfortable and the black-out curtains were very handy for ensuring a lie-in (if only toddlers knew what one of those is!). Everybody had a week of great sleep, and the whole site was noticeably very quiet after around 9pm which meant it was easy to settle children to sleep.

THE GOLF BUGGY'S

My worries about how hilly the site appeared to be and how to get around were answered quite soon after we had a quick walk around the site to orientate ourselves on the first night.

There are…

Golf Buggies…

EVERYWHERE!!!!

The hire of a golf buggy for mid-week will set you back £80 plus a £50 deposit. For us as a family of 6 there weren’t enough seats on one to justify it (4 seats) but I imagine if you are a family of two adults with two kids, whose legs inexplicably stop working at inopportune moments, then I can see this being an excellent investment. If you are one of those lucky people who can afford a 7 day holiday then the cost of a week’s hire is £150 plus the deposit.

The golf buggy’s can be hired from the Bike and Buggy Hire which is located very close to the Blue Lagoon and the main car park.

FACILITIES

On site the facilities available really are excellent. There is a well-stocked shop which had very competitive prices and pretty much every household essential you could possibly want during a holiday, including frozen food such as pizzas alongside fresh produce. There was also a small area of souvenirs.

Next door was a small toy shop which we didn’t dare go in with the toddler! They had branded Bluestone dragons in the window which I did mean to go back and buy but never managed to get round to it.

And next door to those shops was the Arcade which was the only thing on site other than the pub open till late (10pm). The arcade was small but usually had a few people in it playing the games. I’m sure it would cater well enough to the needs of a teenager who was bored and whose parents wanted to have a quiet drink in the pub for half an hour!

Outside the Grillhouse is also a vending machine which contained household essentials such as bread and milk - perfect if you arrive late your first night and the other shops are all closed! I thought this was an ingenious idea and should definitely be published somewhere at the entrance once the main shop has closed for visitors still entering the site desperate for a cuppa in their lodge.

THE BLUE LAGOONThis is where, I have to say, the holiday fell a little bit short. I’ve been spoiled by the Subtropical Swimming Paradise on a certain competitors sites and in comparison the Blue Lagoon is more like a council-run swimming pool. The ceiling is kind of a half-glass, half-wood mix which isn’t that attractive to look at. The Blue Lagoon is also quite small and I can imagine it gets INSANELY busy in school holidays. The main point for me though where it mostly disappointed me was the closing time - 6pm! That’s barely enough time to get dinner inside a toddler after a day out and then down to the pool. Or even dinner inside yourselves. So unless we were planning to go swimming and then go out (my hair won’t tolerate these kinds of shenanigans) or have an early swim before dinner it wasn’t really a possibility to go there. Another thing which I found both good AND bad was that members of the public could use it after 10am, which I can imagine adds an added layer of chaos during busy summer months. You could use it exclusively as a resident between 9am and 10am though, which I guess is great if you have hair that behaves itself after getting wet and not many plans off-site for the day. I have to be honest - having a late swim as the sun is going down is a wonderful end to a fun-filled day, and I did have a bit of a sulk about this closing time on the first night as i was hoping to go there after the long drive down only to find we couldn’t ! I did see an advert that on selected nights for 1 month in the summer they do open later. Personally I would prefer them to open at 10am and close at 9pm, but I’m sure research has been done as to why this isn’t possible.

Inside the Blue Lagoon you have a large changing area with plenty of family cubicles. There are also substantial amounts of lockers and we didn’t have a problem finding either a changing cubicle or a locker. Again, during summer, I imagine this becomes a hive of chaos.

Once inside you’ve got the obligatory large pool which has a “beach” slope leading into the water. The water is a very good temperature and remained as such throughout the week which was very impressive. We stayed at CP Elveden back in February and they had had water problems which meant the ’Subtropical’ paradise was actually freezing cold! So warm water and a warm building were very enjoyable. As I’ve mentioned before the decor didn’t really match up to a “Blue Lagoon” environment as it was all a bit MDF and felt like it needed finishing off?? There were two play areas for children inside the Lagoon, one of which was gated to keep toddlers contained. The gated toddler area is also staffed by a lifeguard and contained lots of play equipment and a mini waterfall area which the toddlers can play in. Our son enjoyed this very much!

There was no tarzan call… but there was a wave machine! I think whatever alarm signals for the wave machine was broken when we visited as the waves were announced with a whistle blow from the lifeguard. The waves were excellent and good quality. Lots of shouting at people was done by the lifeguards as there were quite a few who strayed into the deeper waters where the waves were being generated! It is a small pool though so again during summer I think it might become impossible to keep people away from the deeper waters due to the capacity of the pool.

There are also a number of giant slides on offer! The teenager went down all of them several times and said they were “OK” (which could mean anything). I’m not a fan of water slides and the toddler isn’t old enough for them so we stayed away from that area.

I have to say I was overall quite disappointed with the Blue Lagoon’s offering. It was very reminisce of the sort of pool which you would find on a budget caravan site, rather than a site with luxury lodges. It served a purpose but we did only visit it twice during our stay. I think if it had been open later and had more of an outdoor area then I might have been more impressed and used it more often.

NIGHT-TIME ENTERTAINMENT

I’ll be honest - we aren’t usually the sort of family who goes in for the night-time entertainment offerings of a holiday park. The very mention of such brings back memories of holiday park entertainment from holiday’s in the 90’s with lots of cheesy songs and bad impersonators. So when we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of the Wednesday night “Knights Tafarn” evening entertainment we weren’t sure what to make of it. Lorraine and Abi lead the show and I have to say we were genuinely laughing at their performance. We opted to take part in the “Deal or No Deal” and I’m glad we did because I won the bottle of wine! Having been genuinely entertained by the night-time entertainment we decided to come back on the Thursday night for the pub quiz. Although no bottles of wine were won in that! And our scores are a closely-guarded secret that only us and the recycling bin will ever know.

ACTIVITIES

I have to confess - we didn’t do many activities at all! We were just so busy on and off-site all week that we didn’t have chance to sign up for anything. But we were aware there was lots to do for all ages (including little ones - baby massage, baby sensory). We were given the free passes to the spa, but I think we would have been tempted by this as soon as we saw it on-site anyway. But it was a nice compensation for having loud building works going on next door from 8am every morning!

The Teenager did venture out to the Adventure Centre looking for the climbing session but due to it being off-season the activities were running in rotation and he didn’t want to stand around and wait. But i’m sure the climbing facilities are very excellent to use, as they looked as such.

FOOD AND DRINK ON-SITE

There are a few options for food and drink on site. Knights Tafarn is the on-site pub which offers a variety of standard pub food and is open until 11pm (food stops at 9pm). On the Wednesday night we were a bit greedy and decided to share the banana sundae - it was HUGE!

There is also a bakery/coffee shop which has a variety of cakes and savouries. I am very enthusiastic about my cake but didn’t manage to make it down there at all - we were just too busy doing other things! My parents took the toddler and they reported back the cakes were very nice. And yet didn’t bring me one...

For a bit more upmarket than the Knights Tafarn you’ve got the Grillhouse which offers a selection of steak / family pub chain type fare, although we didn’t have chance to try this out. I did go in briefly when booking a table for the Oaktree and it was quite spacious and the food looked plentiful!

On the same lines as the Grillhouse there is also Camp Smokey, which is situated down a steep stony track near the Steep Ravine centre. There is also a board walk which you would be able to take buggies / wheelchairs up and down. We weren’t around during Camp Smokey’s opening hours (last food at 4:30, closes at 5) so can’t comment on the food from here. The promotional literature looked good though and it’s definitely on the list for next time.

During our stay we ventured into the Adventure Centre and found the Wildwood Cafe. This is a very cute cafe which appears to host a storytelling session and breakfast time. There is a balcony area. The staff member in the cafe was also very cheery, despite us wandering in as his only customers for the last hour of the day! Inside the cafe is also a little hut with beanbags and a movie screen. During our visit the “Smurfs” movie was playing. Very handy for parents of fast eaters who want to be left to finish their meal in peace!

Right at the top of the Bluestone food chain is the Oaktree Restaurant. Children are not permitted after 7pm although they have highchairs for meals with children in attendance before then. It is situated in the main complex and has lift access from inside the Knights Tafarn. We decided to go to the Oaktree on our last night as a treat, since we had babysitters in attendance! We had starters and a main course and I actually struggled to finish my main course as the starters had been huge. The food was exceptionally good and a majority of it appeared to be locally sourced.

THE SPA

About a week before our holiday I received a phone call from a nice man in the Bluestone customer services team informing me that during our stay we would be subjected to the building works which were still going on on-site. He apologised for this inconvenience and offered FREE SPA PASSES for every adult in our party. YES PLEASE! He then also offered to book them so that two adults at a time could go whilst the other two looked after the children. BONUS!

So on the Wednesday off me and my husband toddled to the Well Spa. The building itself is actually very beautiful and tastefully decorated, with quite an imposing door on the outside! Once inside the main entrance you are most definitely in a spa and are greeted by a member of staff who confirms your booking and hands you your robe, towel and slippers. The only thing you need to bring with you is a £1 coin for the lockers and your swimming kit.

The changing rooms for the ladies are painted a magenta pink (my favourite colour!) and have sofas, a large changing area and four showers. Plus toilets and lockers too. There are also two rows of mirrors complete with hair dryers and plug sockets (for other hair styling implements). There are also baskets around the changing rooms for disposing of your slippers, robe and towel afterwards.

You are then led upstairs to the main spa area. We opted to start in the thermal rooms and begin with the herbal steam. It says it is set to 45 degrees and is very good for clearing out the passages! Other thermal rooms include two saunas (brick and slate), a marine steam room (very hot!!), a salt room and then an ice room (10 degrees) for cooling off in afterwards. On the way to the pool / outside decking you pass Caffi Y Mor where you can order hot drinks / food and have them charged to a tab, which saves carrying money around. We then settled our tab after we’d gotten changed and our spa session had finished.

We noticed but didn’t use a couple of other rooms called “The Sanctuary” which were comfortable reclining beds which you could relax on in a private room. There were also a couple of sofas which you could sit and relax on away from the other rooms.

For your money you get 2 hours unlimited usage of the spa facilities and afterwards you are welcome to get changed and eat food in the cafe. We didn’t feel rushed to vacate the spa but stuck to our timings and made sure we were out in enough time to let more people through. The spa was not especially busy whilst we were in and we mostly had exclusive use of every room we opted to go in. We went in each room and the pool at least twice! We also enjoyed hot drinks on the decking in the sunshine, which was absolutely lovely.

I can highly recommend the spa for a visit during your stay at Bluestone! We will definitely visit it again during future trips to the park.

LOCAL ATTRACTIONS

Part of the debate around choosing a British holiday is the worry about whether there will be enough to do in the local area. As it stands Bluestone is very well-placed for local attractions and amenities - you can actually see the Oakwood Theme Park from inside the village as it is directly next door. A week or so before I had visited he tesco clubcard website and found they are currently running a ‘boost’ on points. I typed in “Wales” and it came up with Folly Farm, which happened to only be 5 miles down the road from Bluestone. I purchased £60 worth of vouchers for £15 (enough for the 6 of us) and they arrived a couple of days later. Folly Farm was a brilliant day out and there is plenty to do there for all ages. The penguin underwater walkway was a particular highlight!

On the Thursday we decided we needed to go to the seaside and so opted for Tenby. The South Beach is absolutely gorgeous with beautiful pale sands and a superbly clean beach. We had about an hour of fun on the beach before investigating the town. Thanks to guidance from tripadvisor we went to Caladewer for lunch and The Stowaway Coffee Company for a quick break later on. Both establishments did not disappoint!

Within driving distance of Bluestone there are many beaches and little/villages towns to explore and so you could easily fill a week’s holiday between on-site activities and off-site. We always like to have a nice balance between on and off-site things to do, although you could easily spend the whole week on site and only return to your car on leaving day.

Hardly a local attraction but we found the largest “local” supermarket is the Tesco Extra at Carmarthen, which is 30 miles away. We met up with the rest of our party here to do a food shop for the week. As you approach Bluestone, and on-site, you’ll only find smaller and slightly more expensive shops.

NO DOG / NO CAR POLICY

At Bluestone they operate a strict no-dog and no-car policy on site. This was great news for us as it meant we didn’t have to worry a great deal about safety whilst on-site, although the silent golf buggy’s nearly took us out a few times! I can see this being an issue with some dog-owning families but this didn’t apply to us. So if you own a dog then Bluestone sadly isn’t for you.

CHILD FRIENDLY BITS

Upon arrival into the lodge it was evident they had considered their target audience carefully - there were stair gates fitted to the top and bottom of the staircase (thank goodness!) and blind cord safety devices on all the windows. This was such a fantastic touch and meant we could worry less in the night about the toddler escaping and trying to get downstairs silently (a regular occurrence).

The thing which had to be the absolute star attraction was the little published, at least nowhere we could find it afterwards, Circus Zone. The Circus Zone is a large room FILLED with soft play and toys suitable for children aged 0-6 years. For us, with a toddler, this was amazing! There are also sofas for the parents and it’s just down the hall from the Wildwood Cafe (in the Adventure Centre) which meant you could also go and buy drinks and snacks to sit and eat whilst your children throw themselves around in the safety of this room. Whilst we were in there a number of other parents wandered in having looked through the door window to have a look at what was inside - nobody had known it was there! There isn’t even a sign on the door. If you come out of the lift and turn right then it is the door at the end of the corridor. Or from the Wildwood Cafe you come out and turn left and head down that corridor near to the lift.

Downstairs in the Adventure Centre is also a HUGE play area which basically fills the whole of the centre. It has several large towers - one of which is the play area and the other two are part of the climbing activity. There is also another soft play area downstairs for under 5’s and during our visit a bouncy castle was also blown up at the back of the hall. When we were in it was a sunny day so it was practically empty in the whole centre with no activities running at the time we were there.

Also attached to the Adventure Centre is the creche, which we didn’t need to use as we had grandparents staying with us for the week. But there is no reason why we wouldn’t use it during future holidays as we had a quick nosy and it seemed to be very well-presented with lots of different activities inside.

There is an outdoor play area for children (roughly aged 0-10 years) in the main Village area which was busy every time we walked past, despite us holidaying in quite a quiet week! We didn’t actually get chance to use it as we were just so busy, but it looked good and definitely something our son would enjoy.

THE COST

The pricing is actually very agreeable and definitely competitive. For 6 people (including two children) to stay mid-week in mid-June it is £399. That is absolutely within our budgets and really excellent value for money. Much like every single other holiday company out there they do a “school holiday tax” so the prices hike from the end of June, but if you can holiday off-season and outside of school holidays then you are quids in!

Once on site the activities are reasonably priced too. For instance, the climbing session is priced at £15 per person. This is very reasonable and really not much more than you would expect to pay at an independent climbing centre. And that includes all equipment hire too!

We found out at the end of the holiday you can charge things back to your room and pay the balance on departure - this is very useful and we would have liked to have known this at the start of the holiday. But we now know for next time.

WHERE DOES BLUESTONE FEATURE IN THE HOLIDAY MARKET?

For the first half of the week I honestly felt that Bluestone was more Centre Parcs than Forest Holidays (their two main competitors). But now I’m going to say it sits somewhere between Haven Holidays and Forest Holidays in terms of the Great British Holiday. I think they’re actually striving to be less than Center Parcs and are striding out with their own brand here. This was quite refreshing to see as the holiday market is becoming quite saturated with Butlins, caravan sites and the like. We aren’t really into caravan holidays and sometimes a full week at Center Parcs is a bit budget breaking. We’ve had lovely holidays at Forest Holidays a few times but it misses things which we need with two children - swimming pool, a shop on site, etc which Bluestone does have.

WOULD WE GO BACK?

The million dollar question - the answer is a resounding YES!!!! Excellent value for money, lots to do on site and plenty of places to visit in the local area. We really enjoyed every second of our holiday and wouldn’t hesitate to return. We are slightly ahead of ourselves and have already booked our mid-year holiday for 2016 but we will definitely be back in 2017!

Something which often gets bandied around at the beginning of our cake clubs is…

“Is this good enough?”

The answer is almost universally: YES!

We do not have any rules about what you can bring along to cake club. And we often find that winners of the “favourite cake” token prize are often not the most glamorously decorated. A glamorously decorated cake is sometimes also a cake which has been left out to sit for a few hours. And is now kinda glamorously stale.

We welcome all manner of baked goods. They don’t even need to be sweet - we’ve had many savoury bakes brought along to cake club and we welcome them with open arms because it has meant that a) you got in your kitchen and baked something and b) it’s going to go in my face.

I would hate to think that somebody was put off attending cake club because they feel they need to be some kind of superstar baker. I try and upload photographs from cake club after our events have taken place so that potential attendees can see the kinds of bakes which are brought along. Despite being an organiser of a (reasonably large…) cake club I’m actually not that great at baking. I mean I can DO baking and I understand recipes - but I won’t be appearing on Bake Off any time soon! And also Jordan already did that.

(In fact, if I had £1 for every person who said I should apply for Bake Off I would have approximately £15.)

Never apologise for anything you bring along to our cake clubs. We never look a gift cake in the mouth (well, apart from that is exactly what we do) and welcome all of it with empty bellies!

It’s easy to spend hours googling recipes for different cakes, not to mention how much fun it is to try out different ones. We have a ton of recipes on our pinterest board (cakeclubnotts) which you can browse at your leisure.

But what if you just want a quick cake (or batch of cake batter…)?!

And this is where my old friend, Betty Crocker, comes in.

I have been using cake mixes for years. Ever since I discovered their brilliance I have delighted in the extensive range which is now available in supermarkets. I really do not understand the taboo which comes with saying you have used a cake mix to produce a nice-tasting cake. Is there really any shame in buying a box of the dry ingredients already weighed out for you in perfect amounts? In a quantity which is easy to predict? And that you know will bake well? For me it is often a very cost-effective way to produce a cake because there are no wasted ingredients or anything special which I’ve had to buy and will only use once (red food colouring… I’m looking at you).

Some days you want the main focus to be on the decoration of the cake. Or maybe you just can’t be bothered traipsing all over the supermarket for all the different dry ingredients some cakes need. Or maybe it’s 7pm and your child has just announced they need a cake for the next day for a bake sale and you’re not prepared to let that bitch who outshone you over the easter bonnets lord over you that you failed to perform. Again.

This isn’t to say I don’t think we should be creative with our bakes because we absolutely should. But I also think that there are many a time and a place where a trusty box of cake mix is absolutely necessary.

So, put those scales away and embrace the warm, cosy knowledge that at least your cake will taste great even if your Peppa Pig icing sculpture skills leave much to be desired.

So, what’s it like when somebody you know becomes famous and you get to hop on the gravy train for a while?

We found out that Jordan was going to be on the Great British Bake Off in March 2014, around five months before everybody else found out. Do you know how difficult it is to keep secrets about this kind of thing? It is REALLY DIFFICULT. But I signed one of those nifty non-disclosure agreements with the BBC and that kind of felt like I should be quiet about it until the show aired.

“Ladies, I need to ask you a huge favour.”

We knew in around November 2012 that Jordan was planning to apply to the Great British Bake Off and we were kinda dismissive of it because “yeah yeah you and SEVENTEEN BAZILLION OTHERS.” But we wished him good luck and heard nothing more about it. Until January 2013 when he announced to us that he was in the final 50.

What now?

We found out in the March that he’d made it into the final 14 because we had to stage a mini cake club. We are, after all, where it all began. Bonnie and Jordan have been attending our cake clubs since 2011 and Bonnie was actually the one who used to do all the baking. And then Jordan got interested in this baking lark and the rest is history. The prospect of being used in the “introductions” section of Great British Bake Off was all too much to handle, especially when the viewing figures for Bake Off have increased year on year and they were about to move over to BBC 1.

We all rocked up to the Malt Cross to host our mini cake club one weekday evening and didn’t even know if Jordan was going to be included on the show at this point. During our little filming session it was announced by the producers that they had decided Jordan would be included in the final 12. Much celebration happened and we were all overjoyed that A FRIEND OF OURS was going to be on GBBO. This was the baking big time. How many cake clubs have had an attendee appear on GBBO? (The answer is zero).

And then everything kind of went radio silent for the next five months. Jordan was mysteriously absent for a few cake clubs during filming but we managed to resist asking what was going on.

Finally the date of the first episode was announced. Then the BBC changed it to throw ITV off the scent (or something). We had planned to hire out the Broadway Cinema Lounge for a cake club (ANY EXCUSE) and a private showing of the first episode of the Great British Bake Off 2014! Which is what we did.

I have to say that Jordan’s face appearing on the screen in front of us whilst also simultaneously being hidden by his hands nearby was a very surreal experience. THAT’S JORDAN! ON THE TV! But it was also lots of good fun and we were all absolutely overjoyed for him and this achievement.

The BBC estimated that around 17,000 people applied to the Great British Bake Off 2014 season. Which is epic. To make it into the final 12 is nothing short of a lifetime achievement which I hope will go on to further Jordan’s (intended) career as a patisserie chef.

As we all know he was booted out in week 3 (bread week) but to hold out that long is fantastic and way more than we could ever manage!

There are still three months until the next season of Great British Bake Off 2015. I’ve been a fan since the beginning so to have now been a very small part of all of this has been a fantastic experience. A particular memorable high point was chatting away to Paul Hollywood’s parents (they’re lovely) in VIP at the BBC Good Food Show whilst he was on stage. Not to mention strolling around the show with Jordan and having him recognised CONSTANTLY.

The whole experience has been awesome. I cannot wait to see what the next season brings! (As far as we know… none of our attendees are in this year… or are they?)

You may have seen recently (all over our Facebook and twitter pages!) that a new Kitty Cafe has opened in Nottingham. It is the brain child of Kate and some of the initial funding came from a kickstarter. The kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/354625846/the-kitty-cafe-help-us-bring-cat-cafes-to-nottingh) did exceptionally well and they were able to raise the money to get the whole thing off the ground. They were going to move to a premises in Hockley but at the last minute it was deemed to be unsuitable for the animals so they opted for the ex-Bairstow Eves building on Friar Lane instead.

LOCATION

I have to say that I think their new location is much better located for footfall and customers being able to check it out prior to making a booking. Hockley is the “fashionable” end of town but once the initial excitement has died down I don’t think many people venture up that end of Nottingham unless they absolutely have to. And that’s when they’ll be relying on people walking past and checking them out. It is approximately a 1 minute walk from Market Square and they have a ten year lease on the building, so they are definitely in this for the long haul!

INTERIORS

When you walk in you are held in the ‘cat lock’ doors. The internal door will not open until the outside door is closed. And vice versa. This is to help prevent any feline escapees as there are busy roads nearby which wouldn’t be good for them to stray into. You would not believe how many people are confused by these doors (EVERY SINGLE PERSON during our hour long cafe visit!) and try and open the doors despite reception indicating they need to close the other one first. It became slightly painful to watch so I think the staff are doing well to stay so patient…

The interiors are very glam. When we visited the cafe was only operating at half capacity so wasn’t very full at all. But this was good as the cats need time to acclimatise to their new surroundings. And also the staff need time to get up to speed with taking and delivering orders within the one hour window. The sofas are all very comfortable and it definitely looks very funky.

The cat areas around the cafe are plentiful. There are some raised platforms which they can walk around plus lots of places for them to climb and hide inside. When we visited the cats were quite happy just pottering about but clearly still a little nervous of people. In recent photos from this week I have seen more cats sitting on people’s laps and actively engaging, which is lovely to see.

I spoke to Kate about the kitty areas which appeared to be behind some cat-doors in the upstairs bit. She said that it goes back for two rooms behind the scenes. There is an initial room which contains their food bowls, litter trays and so on and so forth. Then there is a pod room at the back where each cat has their own bed and toys, and this is where they all go to sleep at night. I didn’t get to see these rooms but I hope that Kate might consider putting photos of them on the website for the curious minded amongst us !

I walked past yesterday and saw that they were fitting the take-out window which Kate mentioned when I spoke to her during my visit. So even if you aren’t able to get a booking you can still get the food. This is actually an excellent addition to this end of Nottingham as my office is based just down the road and there are pretty much no options for delicious take-out food within a 5 minute walk. Fothergills used to have a take-out counter but they closed it down around 2 years ago and nowhere else has taken over. I will definitely pop up when I am in the office to come and sample their take-out menus.

STAFF

There were 3 or 4 waitresses serving when we visited on a week day. There were also two front of house staff - Kate (the owner) and Elliot. I know that they are currently hiring for two reception staff so I would assume this is so Kate can take a more hand’s on role in the actual running of the cafe rather than just releasing the cat lock doors. The girls were all wearing very retro style dresses with cats on - a perfect attire for a kitty cafe! The waitresses were all very helpful and pleasant. Our order was taken with 10 minutes and served up within 25 minutes. This left us about half an hour to drink up, eat the cakes and play with the cats. You can actually see into the kitchen at the back of the kitty cafe and the chefs working away on the orders. The kitchen is completely enclosed so that cats cannot go wandering in by accident. I would imagine that they had to jump through a lot of hoops with environmental health over this one…! Kate told me her chefs are Italian and so I am looking forward to visiting when they open up their new menus!

Alongside the waitresses there is also an animal behaviourist and a zoologist within the staff. Kate was telling me that the zoologist has lived in a colony of over 100 cats and so is very experienced at spotting the subtle dynamics of the cats and their behaviour. There was some opposition from the Cats Protection League ahead of the cafe opening (they hadn’t even visited or spoken to Kate) with regards to the living conditions of the cats, but this statement has since been refuted by head office and I feel that the Kitty Cafe have done a good job of proving them wrong thus far.

FOODWe are Nottingham Cake Club and as such we are rather enthusiastic about cake. The cakes DID NOT DISAPPOINT! I was served up a slice of carrot cake the size of my head and it was exquisitely presented with a very pretty swirl of sauce. The drinks were also very good and the tea menu is approximately a mile long. It is definitely the sort of place I would nip up the road to go to when I am working in the office and just need a quiet break. When we visited they were only operating the cake and drinks menus, with a view to opening up to more food from the middle of April. The tea menu is rather large and I can imagine Lee Rosy’s got a bit nervous when Kitty Cafe was going to be based just around the corner from them in Hockley! I had a cappuccino which was very tasty and had just the right amount of foam on top. If they could just add chai lattes to the menu we may be approaching food perfection…

THE CATS

OK, so the stars of the show - the cats. There are 22 cats associated with the Kitty Cafe in various different states. There are 19 cats on premises and 3 currently awaiting checks before they join the herd. There are also 2 kittens on site, both of whom dash around at approximately 100mph. All cats have their vaccinations, flea treatments etc. And they have all been neutered / spayed. The Kitty Cafe actually operates as a cat shelter within their remit of having cats on the premises. But it isn’t as straightforward as adopting from somewhere like the RSPCA. If you would genuinely like to adopt one of their cats then you can register your interest on the day. You are then required to return a few weeks later to register it again (by which point you need to be genuinely interested if you do return) and then they carry out a home check. The whole process can take around 2-3 months, dependent on checks coming back positively. You will then be able to take your kitty home. The proviso is that you do not have to pay a fee for this BUT you will be required to send regular update photo of the kitty (or kitties if you adopt a pair who need to stay together - like Ginsy and Shelby).

The cats were very much just becoming accustomed to their new surroundings and so were a little nervous of people on the day we visited. I didn’t bother them too much and let them mostly come and see us. By the end Ginsy was sat on my Kitty Cafe companions lap having a fuss made of him! The cats did all appear to be very happy and I did see a lot of them actively engaging with visitors to the cafe. We were sat quite near to the front desk though and overheard one lady loudly complaining she expected the cats to be “more engaging with customers” - THEY ARE CATS, they do what they want !! I hope that most people do not expect the cats to “entertain” them and that really you do just go here to “experience” cats as opposed to expect them to do anything.

EXPERIENCE

The overall experience is much like sitting in the house of a crazy cat lady. A crazy cat lady with lots of nice sofas and plenty of cats. Who also makes nice cakes. To be honest this is right up my street (as I am an aspiring crazy cat lady myself…) so I was quite at home there. The surroundings are very nice and it is quite peaceful. I think once they open up to full capacity that the atmosphere will feel a bit more “lived in” (it’s an ex-office block and still retains some of this formalness, unintentionally) and less formal. I think once the cats properly settle in that it will become a bit busier too. Some of the cats did just hide away (and that’s fine) during our visit leaving one or two to work the room, but I think the cats will eventually find their balance too.

In summary it was a very pleasing way to spend an hour amongst the company of cats and I hope to return there soon. ^^~

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Since our visit it has been announced there is now an entry fee to visit the Kitty Cafe. It is £3 per person on weekdays and £5 per person on a weekend. To be honest this sort of prices it out for us as a “walk past and stop by” kind of place to visit and goes into the special occasions list. I am hoping to sign up for their Kitty Card scheme which is £36 a year and allows you to have unlimited visits. At the moment I don’t have £36 going spare though so maybe next pay day I might be able to sign up for this. It would certainly pay for itself if I just visited once a month! The fee has been brought in as a welfare charge for the cats. However, the prices on the menu were very reasonable so you could still have a visit for two for just over £20, I think.

We are back for 2015! We have a new venue, new favourite cake awards and a whole bunch of new charities to support this year. The number of tickets sold - 15 - was actually our smallest event for a long time (is everybody on a diet? pfft!!) but that doesn’t make it any less of a success!This month we supported Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and their representative Rachel Rutherford told us all about the conservation work they are doing in Sherwood Forest. Rachel is already a regular attendee of cake club so it's good to support a charity that means a lot to a number of our members.The raffle prizes supplied by Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust were simply amazing! One of them was for a free massage (won by Kerry)!! Also on the table was a love2shop voucher, a waterstones voucher and a funky apple gadget (won by Sarah)?! We absolutely love a good raffle and as it turned out everybody in the room won at least one prize. :DThe selection of cakes at today’s event was as impressive as ever. We had everything from a classic lemon drizzle cake to a twist on a classic blueberry muffin turned into bundt cake form. Our cake of the month was voted as the Raspberry Amaretto Cake made by cake club newbie Adele.

We are back in April for our Easter themed event, so we’ll see you then!